All posts tagged: Terrariums

A few months ago I posted about my newest love for stained glass, a craft that is as satisfying as it is painstaking. After finishing the first semester of the course I was absolutely obsessed and went back for another semester. Here are some photos of my recent creations. (Side note: I am still absolutely obsessed with continuing to expand my skills with this beautiful art form and am currently working on setting up a little space where I will be able to work from home. Exciting!) The first thing I made this semester was an antique style scallop mirror. I wanted to try something art deco inspired and a mirror seemed like the right choice. I designed the mirror pattern myself. It’s a little bit hard to tell in the photos but the scalloped edging has two different types of textured clear glass and the detailing is made from opaque black glass. I gave this to my mum for Christmas as she collects art deco mirrors. She absolutely loved it :) (The beautiful crochet …

I’ve been wanting to make one of these for a while but didn’t have a good enough reason to – until Christmas that is! I made two as gifts, they were more work than I had anticipated but still really fun to make and worth it overall. Thanks to my Dadsie who did much of the hard labour with the frames <3 Materials: Succulents of choice Picture frames Weedmat Chicken wire or gutter mesh Shadow box (premade or your can make your own) Potting mix Tacks and nails Hooks and hanging wire Scissors Hammer Nail punch Thin tool like a pencil or end of a spoon etc. Water Many years ago my family acquired quite a number of these vintage cheese boxes. They have come in handy for so many things over the years! They’ve been used for many a DIY project and met even more storage needs. I’m pretty sure this one I claimed is the very last unallocated box (when I say unallocated I mean full of random junk in the shed that I felt better belonged scattered over Dad’s workbench). Dad measured …

Renting might not afford you as much freedom to make modifications to your house exactly as you’d like, but I’m proud to say that despite being a renter, I still made my apartment a bright and interesting home, somewhere that’s been a joy to come back to at the end of the day. I have a lot of stuff. Books, artwork, photos, keepsakes, knick-knacks, plants, etc. My collections, like my tastes, are very eclectic. This makes decorating sometimes fun, and also sometimes overwhelming! There’s a story behind almost every item – whether it’s a piece of furniture I revamped, painting by a friend, terrarium I made, travel photo, well-thumbed novel or bowl of unpolished crystals I’ve amassed over time, almost everything I own comes with some kind of sentimental attachment. This makes it hard to get rid of stuff sometimes or to objectively “edit” my decor choices. None of my furniture matches because they were hand-me-downs or gifts or op-shop finds or bargains from IKEA. The books and artworks I have I’ve been collecting for a decade …

Somehow or rather I developed an interest in making terrariums. I can’t remember how, to be totally honest. It just became a new obsession for no real reason. That obsession turned my apartment into a living greenhouse – terrariums everywhere. At one stage I had around 45 in my house. Crazy plant lady! The result of this little obsession has manifested into moss&bone, my fun little side project of making and selling terrariums :) This is a selection of some of my favourites I’ve made – see greenery for more! Making these makes me happy, and I think they make others happy too :)

This is probably one of the most favourite things I’ve ever made. I had a lot of fun! I bought the bubblegum machine in its original, tired form from a friend. I then sanded it back, gave it an undercoat and then a couple of coats of this glorious glossy blue. I then cut a piece of perspex to size (Ikea frames! They all have flexible plastic rather than glass – perfect!) to sit inside the base of the gumball machine and sealed it up to make sure that it was watertight. After that I built a simple moss terrarium inside and added a cutesy bunny and then I was finished :) It was really hard to part with this but it went to a great home and I’m happy that others loved it as much as I did too.

I spent a good hour in a second hand shop finding the right sized frames – and I aaaallllmossttt got there. They didn’t all measure up exactly and if they did it would probably have ended up looking more ‘finished’, but I kind of like that it has that used/distressed/scrappy look. Seeing as it is actually all of those things! This was also an interesting experiment for me in doing some basic handyman work – nailing things and such. I think I need to do a basic tools course (do they have those?) as I was pretty useless at that part and it took me way longer than it would have taken a partially skilled human. At one point I accidentally nailed the thing to the floor of my loungeroom…. oops! Before After